


Something past

by heldor



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Dean in Hell, Dean's red plaid shirt, Demons, Discipline, Domestic Castiel/Dean Winchester, Dysfunctional Family, Fallen Castiel, Fatherly Bobby Singer, Hell, Human Castiel, Implied Childhood Sexual Abuse, Implied/Referenced Abuse, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Implied/Referenced Sexual Assault, John Winchester's Bad Parenting, Legendary Winchesters, M/M, Monster of the Week, Other, POV Sam Winchester, Past Underage Sex, Phone Calls & Telephones, Protective Bobby, Protective Bobby Singer, Protective Sam Winchester, Season 9, Secrets, Teen Winchesters, Underage Prostitution, Weechesters, Young Winchesters, implied dub-con, plaid
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-24
Updated: 2013-08-24
Packaged: 2017-12-24 13:36:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,961
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/940595
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/heldor/pseuds/heldor
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sam and Dean capture a demon who makes some accusations about Dean's past. Sam digs deeper and talks to Bobby about shared suspicions. Meanwhile, Dean is teaching Cas about being human.</p><p>“Yeah, from what I heard, you spilled it all to Alistair; anything to make him stop, right? There ain’t no shame in it, anyone who’s had him work them knows he’s good at what he does. Yeah, well he had all your little secrets, boy and he wasn’t shy to share ‘em…”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Something past

**Author's Note:**

> Intended to be read as post-season 8. I heard Jim Beaver will be back for season 9, so Bobby is alive in this fic. The method of his return is mentioned/hinted at but not gone into. Likewise, the boys have brought Cas back to the Men of Letters' bunker. The consequences of Sam giving up the Trials is mentioned, but not focused on. Basically just an exercise in writing from Sam's POV, which I've never done before.
> 
> Not-Beta'd, so apologies for any obvious typo's!

“Deeeeean Winchester,” the demon drew the name out, long and slow, like it had never enjoyed saying a word more. “I heard aaaall about you, down in the pit.” Sam’s brother smirked; he liked it when monsters knew him; even more when the creature in question was tied up with the men of letters’ devil’s-trap chains. If they’d heard of him, they knew what he and Sam did; he knew that they always won, even against the devil himself; they won. That they stubbornly refused to stay dead, and that killing them only made them mad. It ensured respect. Sam wondered, then, why this particular demon was grinning through blood-stained teeth. Dean didn’t seem too concerned by it; he’d seen plenty of evil sons-of-bitches hiding piss-your-pants terror behind false bravado.

 

                “Yeah?” he asked, pulling his chair forwards to the very edge of the devil’s trap. “what you hear?” he still had a shit-eating smile on his face as he gestured with Ruby’s old knife, “I’m all ears.”

                “I heard plenty,” the demon spat a mouthful of blood, “about how you was born the sweet little son of a sweet little huntress and her big dumb husband, that you was all set to follow on in daddy’s footsteps and be big and dumb, but that after mommy died he decided to make you something else instead.”

“A hunter,” Dean said, with a smirk, “just like mom, hey Sammy?” they both knew that this wasn’t what Mary had wanted for them, but he wasn’t about to bring that up in front of the mook.

“Uh uh~” the Demon’s tone was sing-songy and musical, even as he paused to cough; a hacking, dragging sound from the sucking wound in his chest Dean had been forced to give him in the fight to get him into the chains. They’d been hearing reports of this demon for weeks already, so neither of them were too worried about killing the poor son of a bitch the thing was living in; he was almost certainly long dead already. “Only among other things, from what I hear.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Means from what I hear your daddy passed you around more’n a peace-pipe in a wigwam.”

“What.” Dean’s voice was flat, and Sam could see his face had turned from cocky certainty to the complete blankness he wore when a nerve had been scraped.

“Yeah, from what I heard, you spilled it _all_ to Alistair; anything to make him stop, right? There ain’t no shame in it, anyone who’s had him work them knows he’s good at what he does. Yeah, well he had all your little secrets, boy and he wasn’t shy to share ‘em. How old were you the first time? Fourteen, right? Tsk, such a shame. I hear you were a real pretty kid, too-“

“Shut your mouth.”

“Dean, what the hell-“

“Don’t listen to him, Sam. It’s a demon; they’ll say anything to get out of dyin’ or going back to hell.”

The demon was laughing outright now, the sound making the wound in his chest gurgle and squelch.

“He doesn’t know! You never told him? Well, I guess it makes sense John wouldn’t have put little Sam up to it, right? He was always the favourite. Couldn’t send _his_ sweet little ass out to-“

“That’s enough. You don’t know crap. Sam, this is a waste of our time. This guy’s not gonna lead us to Crowley; I doubt he’d even be able to find the way to his own dick with both hands.” The demon was still laughing as Dean threw his arm forward and cut his throat, sending out a rumbling flash before the body flopped forwards against its chains; gone.

 

“....what was that about, Dean?” Sam’s voice was cautious, slow. Dean was wiping the blood off the knife and putting it away.

“I look like I know?” he asked, hardly glancing up at his brother until the knife was stowed. “Just demon crap. You know what they’re like; they’ll say anything they think can get a rise out of you.”

“Yeah. And it seemed like it kind of worked, Dean- we didn’t even ask if he knew anything about-“

“Come on, he was just some low-ranking spook. He wasn’t going to know anything. You really think Abaddon’s going to trust where she’s keeping the old king to some low-level monster of the week? Get real, brother.”

“What he said, about dad-“

“You’re like a dog with a friggin’ bone. Are you seriously asking me if dad sold my ass for change? God, I know you had your problems with the man but even you have to realise how ridiculous that sounds,” Sam jutted his jaw and slightly raised his eyebrows, acceding the point. “Even if you could think that of dad, do you really think I’d have gone along with something like that?” and Sam really wishes Dean had let the conversation go a sentence earlier; because he’d been convinced, and then he had to go and say a thing like that. Because if Sam was sure of anything, he was sure that Dean- teenaged Dean, before Sam ran away, before the two of them came back together- _that_ Dean, would have done absolutely anything their father told him to; worse, anything he didn’t tell him, but which Dean could tell he wanted doing.

“Yeah. I guess you’re right. Sorry I mentioned it, I guess.” Dean just nods, and the two of them set to getting rid of the body.

 

 

He leaves it alone for a week; just long enough that Dean is no longer retreated deep back into the machismo shell he’d been gradually leaving over the course of years. The morning he’d come out of his room in a bright red plaid shirt and had laughed into his coffee when Cas told him it complimented his skin tone Sam decided his brother had gotten over whatever the demon’s words had set off inside of him.

                They were still trying to get the angel used to things like the linear nature of time; its gradual progression and general restrictions of movement vis a vis _we cannot teleport_ , and so he left them with Dean pouring over a map on which Cas had marked a range of potential cases spread across the entirety of the continental U.S, trying to see which jobs they could work themselves and which they could farm out to other hunters, to call Bobby.

 

                It still felt weird, being able to pick up the phone and call the man who was more of a dad than their father had ever really been, after a year and a half of him being gone from their lives, and when the line clicked into life and the gruff voice answered “yello?” just like always, Sam had to swallow the lump in his throat. He was glad that more than just angels had fallen out of heaven.

                “Bobby, hi,” now that it came to it, he wasn’t sure of how to put the question into words. “I- I have a question for you. I don’t know if you’ll even know, maybe I’m being an idiot for even asking, but-“

“Stop pulling out your hair and spit it out, boy.” Sam guiltily pulled his hand away from his head, wondering how the old geezer had known what he was doing through the telephone wires.

“I guess I was just.... when we were kids- well, when I was a kid, I guess Dean would have been fourteen, fifteen- did you ever notice anything weird?”

“with our profession, you’re gonna have to be a little more precise than ‘weird’, son.” Sam actually cracked a smile at that.

“I mean- between him and dad. Did you ever get the feeling like- I don’t know, just something weird, I guess.”

 

There was a long moment of silence on the line; long enough that Sam repeated Bobby’s name, to make sure they hadn’t gotten cut off.

“I’m here. That would have been what, around ’94?”

“Around then, yeah.” Silence again.

“It’s a shame Jim Murphy’s not around...”

“Pastor Jim?” He hadn’t known Bobby was even really aware of the other man, though he supposed it made sense that he did: Like Garth had said once; Bobby knew everyone.

“Yeah. ’94.... that was around the same time your daddy and I started havin’ our fallin’ out. You boys started spending John’s trips out in Minnesota with Jim, rather than with me. I didn’t really see you boys for a year or two.”

“Oh.” Another long pause; he vaguely remembered that Bobby was right, there was a gap in his memories of bobby around that age, before a thought finally came to Sam that he’d never given time to before. “Bobby, what did you and dad fall out over?”

“Oh, who even knows, Sam-“ a little too quick. “It’s all water under the bridge anyway.”

“Which is it, Bobby- water under the bridge or you don’t remember?” He made the noise which let Sam know he’d backed the old guy into a corner.

“Oh, for Pete’s sake, Boy- it was just a dumb misunderstanding on my part. We got on fine after it was all cleared up- least up until the time I shot ‘im anyhow.” He laughed, but Sam didn’t join in. “What’s got you pulling up the past, anyway?” Sam shook his head, even though Bobby couldn’t see the gesture; it cleared his head.

“Just something a demon said.”

“Oh, Sam- you know-“

“Demons lie, yeah, I know- but you didn’t see Dean’s face when this guy started coming out with this stuff. And he knew things, about when Dean was-“ his voice caught, and he found himself turning away from the door to the bunker, even though he was alone out in the woods, “when he was in Hell. About Alistair. Too much truth for me to be convinced it was all a lie, you know.”

“Yeah, I know how that goes.” Something in Bobby’s voice made Sam think he was starting to get convinced. “What did this demon tell you? Something about Dean and your dad?” Sam’s stomach began to curl up on itself; Bobby’s voice told him they were both afraid they were about to have a fear confirmed, and Sam didn’t want for it to be the same one.

“He said-“ his voice broke mid-sentence as he tried to rationalise how to put the sentence together; it was so ludicrous, it couldn’t be true, and putting it into a tangible sentence was laughable. But Bobby had asked. “He said that, when we were kids. That dad was- I don’t know. Like Dean’s.... pimp or something, it’s ridiculous, right?” he suddenly tried to cover up the sentence; to lessen the words, make sure Bobby knew he wasn’t taking it seriously; who could, right? Not his big brother; Dean would never  go along with anything like that. Dad would never put him up to anything like that. Bobby was silent. Sam swallowed around the blossoming sick-feeling. “Bobby?”

Bobby blew out a breath in a way that sounded almost like a laugh. “Huh.” Sam heard the drag of a glass being pulled across a desk and then the clink of a bottle on its lip. There was a long pause, where he heard Bobby take a long sip and then swallow.

“Bear in mind, Sammy, I knew your daddy a very long time.” Bobby so rarely called him that that it sent a shiver through Sam’s body to hear it now; it told him instantly that he was about to be given bad news, that Bobby was trying to lessen the blow. “I met him not that long after what happened to Mary- to your mom. When he was still new on the scene. I taught him what I could, tried to get rid of a lot of the nonsense he’d convinced himself of out of horror movies and all that. I’d say I knew him pretty well. Enough that I could see that he wasn’t the man he was used to being. Your mom dying really did a number on him; he was so... _regimented_ with you boys. Used to make Dean make his bed even when I was gonna put the sheets in the wash that day, used to have him field-stripping a rifle in his pyjamas when he was so little he had to kneel up on a chair to my kitchen counter, over and over to way beyond when he shoulda been in bed. I used to pick that kid, dead asleep, off my couch and carry him upstairs to his bed and John’d ask where he’d gone- at midnight. It was like he forgot your brother was a kid, sometimes. He wanted a partner and instead he had a weight- and you know I don’t mean that against you two; he loved you boys, he just didn’t know what to do with himself.”

“I know, Bobby.” He almost whispered the words. It still hurt to talk about John, to remember the man as he had been in the moments of laughing, singing along to the car radio, having him come home after a week hunting, him and Dean alone in a motel room, going to some school where they didn’t both to learn anyone’s name, and have him throw candy at their heads when he came in an hour after school let out, the promise of the open road in the cold air on his jacket. Pancakes and syrup for dinner in a roadside diner, getting given five dollars to pick a toy from the rack beside the register in a minimart; drinking warm soda bought from a bodega on the street; passing the big bottle between the three of them and wiping their mouths with the backs of their sleeves. They’d had raging arguments; more as Sam got older, but they’d been family.

“Well, I just. There was this one time,  you were sick; tonsillitis or something, some kid-illness. John’d left Dean with you and he’d come back a fortnight later to find you with a fever of a hundred an’ four, sweatin’ in your bed. He dropped you off at my place with a bottle of some pink medicine I don’t know if he got from a doctor or a crackhead or what, middle of the night, screeched off with Dean in tow and he didn’t come back for a week and a half. He’d been in the middle of something pretty big about the Demon-” somehow, Sam could year the capitals and knew he meant Azazel. “- he decided to bring Dean into it- like it was a punishment. I don’t know- your brother used to beg to get brought along, he hated seeing your dad go off alone, cos he always came back so beat up, and he thought he could stop it or something- But this time, well. He had this crazy look on his face when he carried you in, all wrapped up in blankets he’d pulled off the bed in the motel- I told him not to get in the car; a man shouldn’t be driving his kid around when his eyes look set to catch something on fire, y’know? But he wouldn’t hear sense.”

Sam licked his lips, his eyes glancing back to the door of the bunker. Times like this, he wished he smoked; something, anything; to excuse himself outside without Dean coming to look for him. Living in such close quarters as they always had, they generally respected that sometimes one of them needed space, but with everything that had happened in the last year they’d gotten a little stuck on one another. He pulled the phone away from his mouth as he felt a coughing fit start to wrack his body, and when he pulled it back Bobby’s voice was soft and derailed.

“No news on what we’re doing with you, huh?” They’d all been looking for information as to what happened to someone who stopped pursuing the trials, but so far nothing had come up. His chest didn’t feel as tight as it had, though; so he was personally holding out hope that eventually time would heal him, even if they couldn’t find a magic spell to do the job.

“I’m fine, Bobby. Keep talking.” He heard the other man take a deep breath, and he could imagine him hunched over a desk of paperwork, pen in hand, rubbing his eyes before leaning back; telling the story he didn’t much want to share.

“Well, when they got back Dean looked like your dad had given him a week of hell; he was completely beat, he stunk to high heavens; I don’t think John let the poor boy stop to get his wits together the whole time; neither of them looked like they’d had more’n 20 minutes sleep at a time. John just told me he’d had a lead on some information and that Dean had helped, but it had ended up as a dud. I wouldn’t have thought any more on it except Dean’s throat was all bruised up, like he’d been grabbed or something, like someone’d choked the life outta him. I mentioned it to John-well... actually I remember I told him social services’d take the kid away if they saw him like that. He just said he’d gotten it working something out. Like that meant anything to me. Next time I touched him, Dean just about flew off his chair he flinched away so hard. He was like a spooked horse, but he went right up to you in bed and he sat by you all night, sleepin’ in a chair like he was holding vigil, with  the hall light on and the door open, like he was afraid of the dark. I didn’t even hear him say a word till you woke up around 2am, and he sounded like he’d spent the last thirteen days smoking his way through pack after pack of Lucky’s. He was so hoarse I thought there was a grown man in your room whispering at you; I came in there with my gun, but it was just you two.”

Bobby heaved a huge sigh.

“He seemed different, Sam. Something went on and I didn’t like it. His eyes weren’t little-kid eyes anymore. He looked... haunted. And real unhappy with himself. He kept apologising for every little thing, and he’d always been a real confident kid despite everything. He knocked over the sugar bowl and I thought he was gonna pee his pants he was so... freaked out over it, as if I’d ever so much as raised my voice at ‘im. I didn’t know what was up, but he just- he was different, and I had a sneaking suspicion. After that, he got quiet; he was in his own head more and more. It was like a switch had got flipped and all he cared about was watching out for you and hopping to help John before he got asked.”

“So you mean like... He became exactly how he is now?” Bobby snorted.

“No- he always took care of you, but it was different. Not healthy. He calmed down, but then it switched to this _attitude_. Way worse than your normal adolescent bitch-fits. John’d leave you kids to do your own thing and Dean’d start flashing cash around, drove John crazy.”

“Bobby, just say it.” The other man sighed, long and resigned.

“I was pretty sure that something big was up. At first I think Dean wasn’t in control of it, but later on- well. I think he realised that he could do by choice was John was setting him up for.”

“Bobby, for god’s sake-“

“fine, fine. Yes. I asked your daddy if he was doing what I thought he was doing and he told me to mind my own damn business. I told him you boys _were_ my business and he reminded me that no matter what I might think _he_ was your daddy and I should, to use his words, ‘back the fuck off.’ I reminded him that my help’d been good enough for him all these years, maybe he oughta find someone else to help him. Biggest mistake of my life, boy. He packed you both up and I didn’t see you for more’n a year. I must have driven myself _crazy_ staying up all night, worrying what you two was up to, cursin’ myself for being such an idjit as to scare John off like that. Till eventually he came back; a bad penny, that was your daddy. Needed a hand with some mojo=stuff, I can’t remember. Well, Dean was 16, nearly 17 then. That’s when I first saw him doing that thing where he acts like he’s too good for the world.” Bobby’s voice was sarcastic and Sam knew exactly the look he was talking about; too good for the world, but the thinnest veneer anyone who knew him could see through all too clearly. “Broke my heart. I was pretty sure he was lost to us all then. I was just waiting for the day John called up and asked if I’d seen him; I was sure he’d run away and we’d never see him again.” Bobby gave a sharp, rueful laugh. “but then it was you he called me about instead; that was a surprise. I guess Dean was always too loyal for his own good.”

“Tell me about it,” Sam muttered, and the two of them shared a companionable silence for a moment, rocking Bobby’s words around his brain. “Thanks,” he finally settled on, voice quiet, “for tellin’ me that. I guess I- I don’t know. It doesn’t really help at all, I guess.” He laughed, to stop himself from going crazy; just one short sharp ‘ha.’ And Bobby made a little noise of agreement.

“I ain’t saying I ever asked your brother if your daddy was forcing him into anything, and I ain’t saying I ever saw him turning tricks on Santa Monica Boulevard. Just- don’t hold it against him, ok? Whatever happened, he’s the same Dean you knew 20 minutes ago, nothing changed because I told you some dumb story that happened in the past. Okay?”

“Of course, Bobby.” Sam would have been hurt that Bobby thought so little of him if he wasn’t so glad that Dean had him there to protect him, even from Sam.

“Well, good. How’s Cas? Still pickin’ stuff up ok?” Sam rubbed his hand over his face.

“Yeah, he’s doing a lot better. I think we’re gonna be able to come out and see you not too long from now, help you get the new house fixed up.”

“good, good. Don’t rush anything. I’ll still be here. Till the day I die.” Sam smiled. And longer than that, evidently.

“Ok. And thanks, Bobby. For- well, for whatever. For everything. I missed having you around.”

“Eh. I was always around, boy. Just now you gotta listen again, huh?”

 

When the phone call was over, Sam wandered back in. Dean was arguing with Castiel about driving- something about a human not being able to handle more than sixteen hours on the road without going crazy, while the angel was arguing that they would have to, if they hoped to get wherever it was he wanted to go in time. Bobby was right; nothing had changed, because their lives never stopped changing long enough for there to be any kind of “normal” for them to switch from.

 

“We can take shifts, Dean- I’ll drive while you sleep, Cas can learn to drive, we’ll be fine.”

 

They would be, Sam thought. They would have to be.


End file.
